Spaghetti Squash!

It's always exciting to try something new. I'd heard of spaghetti squash before, but never actually seen one in real life until just now. I found one in Choku Bai Jo, and I'm told that they grow quite well in the Canberra region. Since it's such an oddity, I've taken lots of photos.

So here it is in its original state, looking a bit like an elongated honeydew melon. There's a nice big avocado next to it for scale. The first step is to cut it in half, where it now looks like a cross between a melon and a pumpkin.

Now you need to cook it, and this is where the advice I found differs. Either you can put it in a greased oven tray, or on one with a couple of centimetres of water in it. Place it cut side down, and bake at 180C for about 30 minutes, until it's quite easy to pierce the rind with a knife. Take it out and scrape out the seeds. You can leave it to cool first, but I found holding it with an oven mitt and scraping with a spoon was fine.

And now, take to it with a fork and scrape lengthwise along the squash, and you will end up with a lot of strands, like angelhair pasta - that's very thin spaghetti. Serve it how you will.



Don't expect it to taste like spaghetti, no matter what the low-carb diet books say! It's definitely a squash, more like zucchini. But the texture is fun, and it makes for a nice light meal. Good for summer, tossed with pesto, olives and fetta, perhaps. We actually ate it with a tomato, olive, bacon and chilli sauce. It seemed to need cheese quite a lot. I've also had some tossed with tuna, chilli, peas and corn. It seems to leave me a bit unsatisfied, like having a salad for dinner. A hunk of nice bread would help complete it. Or it could be a side dish - I think it would be good in a gratin.

Drawing Down the Freezer

Next week there's going to be electricity pole maintenance, and we're scheduled for an all day power outage. Yikes! In this weather, the ordinary fridge stuff will be fine in an esky, or just with a bag of ice in the fridge. But I have a stuffed freezer.

And in an added stroke of bad timing, I had just decided to cook up a huge batch of chilli con skippy. What I do with this is make a generic mix of the meat with onion, garlic, veggies and tomatoes, then freeze a batch to convert to Spag Bog later. Mix the rest with your chosen spices and kidney beans, and some more veggies, make an inauthentic but yummy chilli, eat it for 2-3 meals and freeze half for later. This is very efficient. But not so great, actually, if you are going to be without power to your freezer.

So I've started drawing it down. It's time to do a chuck out anyway, and there were definitely quite a few things to be tossed. Gone is that pack of frozen prawns that didn't taste so great, but I thought would be OK for a curry. The kittens can eat the frozen chicken mince that I bought to tempt Shadow, and then could not bear to eat later. The pack of kidneys can go out, too. I turned a bit against them when suddenly we had cats with kidney disease, and my doc was making me have a kidney function test of my own. (No problem, a false alarm.) I'm over it now and would cheerfully make devilled kidneys, but now they are old and freezer burned. And that chocolate cake is at least 2 years old. Out with it!

But most of it is for eating, or for finding a safe stash for the day. I started by making pea soup on Monday, which used up a couple of things. And then I discovered to my shock that MasterChef has stolen my recipe!

I bought the magazine to check it out, and there it was, my pea soup! Oh, they'd disguised it by making it vegetarian, and leaving out the butter and cream and leek, so mine is actually better. But still, it's close. The colour is the same very bright green as in their picture in the magazine, not yellowy-green like an old fashioned pea and ham soup with dried peas.

Recipe: Green Pea Soup
1 leek
1 tablespoon butter
600g frozen peas
2 cups chicken stock
100ml cream
2 tsp mint in a tube
150g chunk ham
* Wash and chop the leek and fry gently in the butter.
* Add the stock and frozen peas, and bring to a simmer.
* Simmer for 15-20 minutes, then add cream and mint.
* Whiz up in the saucepan with a stick blender.
* Thin with water to desired texture.
* Add diced ham.
* Serve with buttered rye toast.


Notes: Adjust the taste at the end - a pinch of salt, perhaps if you're not adding ham. A pinch of sugar if they're cheap overgrown peas with too much starch, but not if they're baby peas or sugar snaps. I did use a mixed bag which had some sugar snaps in it. Obviously fresh mint would be better, but that Garden Gourmet tube mint is OK in a pinch. Vegetarians can use veggie stock and use the MasterChef idea of Persian Fetta sprinkled on top instead of the ham.

So there we go. A frozen tub of chicken stock and a pack of peas gone from the freezer. And I had Maggie Beer lemon icecream for dessert - leftover from Easter, but still good. I took a frozen pasta leftover thing in for lunch at work today, and tonight we're eating sausages, oven chips and more frozen peas.

There's still far too much to eat before next Friday, though I will do my best. I still have roast tomatoes, several packs of rhubarb, some more icecream, some soy-cooked chicken, more chicken stock and turkey stock, and quite a variety of meat and berries. Oh, and some chilli and the makings of a spag bog.

Avocados, please

Avocados are expensive right now. Yesterday I did a big Woollies shop to restock after my last week of being too busy to cook or clean up. And it's nearly $4 for an avo - $3.98 each (or whatever, it's close). And then I spotted the organic ones - a two-pack for $3.42. Ahahahaha!

And did you know that the organic avos are packed on a nice recycled cardboard tray, not that styrofoam tray kind of thing that they pack meat on? Any other pre-packed veg is on one of those trays. I don't often buy much F&V from Woollies, so I haven't noticed this until now. What's the point here, I wonder?

While I was there, I did my good deed of the day by advising a small group of young women in the meat section that chuck steak is for casseroling, not grilling.

I don't really have any formal recipes to add here. But avocado smushed on rye toast, with a good sprinkle of lime juice, is an excellent breakfast. Cayenne optional. Also, while I'm handing out tips, never cook avocado! It goes very nasty and bitter with prolonged heat. If you want it on a pizza or in a pasta, it's OK to add it at the last minute so it just warms gently.

Ramz at Dickson, and other things

On Saturday I was off at my favourite Asian grocer, Saigon, buying bean sprouts and gai lan and such. It's my favourite because they have great fresh veggies and fruit there (deliveries Friday and Tuesday arvos, IIRC). I got some weird looking pink fruits, that I think are Australian water-roseapples. And almost next door, there is a new grocery called Ramz Spice Mart.

Ramz fills a gap in Dickson. We've got plenty of Vietnamese and Chinese grocers, and they tend to stock other south-east Asian goodies, but this new one is an Indian specialist. It's run by a Fijian Indian family, who are new to Canberra, and I wish them success.

They stock every kind of dahl you could want, several of them in flour form, too. And huge bags of rice and a great array of chutneys and pickles and spices galore, of course. And the odd things Fijians seem to want, like tinned corned mutton. There's also a freezer with Fijian reef fish and goat meat, as well as samosas and other snacks, and a good selection of frozen vegetables. There's drumsticks and mehti leaves and karela and other more common things. And paneer in the fridge. (See recipe at end.)

It's not a huge shop, like the supermarket in Belconnen, but they still have room for a few oddities. There's a small rack of shiny sequinned bags and sandals and clothes up the back; and some cosmetics and cookware on the shelves.

Speaking of Dickson, Woollies seems to have finally finished their "upgrades". I'm not thrilled. It's bigger since they've moved the grog shop out, but the aisles are narrower. And they've got those annoying self-checkouts replacing most of the old express queue. I would not mind those so much if I didn't have to get help every damn time I use them. I tend to commit sins like not putting my two mangoes down at exactly the same split second, or trying to use a non-standard bag. I find them very irritating. Also irritating is the change to coin-op trolleys. I've never stolen a trolley before, in fact I never even thought of it. But now I really really want to. I have no idea what I'd do with it, I'm just a contrary type.



Now we've got that out of the way, what do we do with paneer? Mattar paneer is a classic, and the paneer packet had a recipe on the label. But because I had spinach (half from Woollies and half from the garden) I made a mixed Mattar Saag Paneer. So there.


Recipe: Mattar Paneer with extra greens
250g Sharma's Kitchen Paneer (or any paneer)
2 medium onions
5 cloves garlic
large thumb sized knob of ginger
1 tblsp coriander seeds
2 green chillies
1 tin tomatoes, crushed
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp turmeric
2 fresh green chillies, or chilli powder to taste
pinch salt
4 bay leaves
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup ghee or vegetable oil
250g frozen peas
4 cups fresh spinach, chopped
chopped coriander leaves

* Puree one onion, the fresh chillies (if using), garlic and ginger and the coriander seeds, with just a dash of water.
* Soak the paneer in hot water for a couple of minutes, then cube.
* Heat the oil and fry the paneer until golden.
* Remove paneer and drain.
* Add the second onion, chopped, to the pan with the bay leaves, and fry until golden.
* Add the puree and the turmeric and fry until oil starts to separate.
* Add yoghurt, tomato, cornflour, chilli powder (if using) and salt and stir very well.
* Stir constantly until it returns to a simmer.
* Add paneer and the water.
* Simmer gently for 20 minutes.
* Add peas and spinach, and return to a simmer for 5 minutes.
* Sprinkle with plenty of chopped fresh coriander to serve.

Notes: I wanted to link to the website, http://sharmaskitchen.com.au but they seem to be down right now.

Anyway, this isn't very much modified from the original. I added the extra greens, as I mentioned. Also, the cornflour is mine - it helps to stop the yoghurt curdling. And the option of chilli powder instead of fresh chilli. I also reduced the oil from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup, and I'm not quite sure that was right - the paneer stuck to the pan a bit.

But it was yummy, and also very creamy despite the fact that I used low fat Greek yoghurt. Definitely worth doing again.

Oh, Diana!

Here's another back-post from the "drafts" queue.

Diana Lampe writes the vegetarian kitchen column for the weekly Canberra Times food and wine pages. She's a very nice person and I usually like her recipes. Back in October, she had a recipe for "Anglesea Eggs", a recipe from north Wales. You can tell that it's Welsh, because it has both Caerphilly cheese AND leeks in it! I not only have Welsh ancestry but I also had some nice leeks on hand, so I decided to make it. And I have to say - never again!

It's not that it's bland, though it is. It's warm cheesy comfort food, and you don't usually want that sort of thing to be highly spiced. (Or if you do, then some chutney, HP or chilli sauce at table will do well.) The problem is that you really don't want to use so many saucepans, or do so much prep, to achieve just a simple bit of comfort food.


Recipe: Anglesey Eggs
2-3 medium leeks
500g potatoes
6-8 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
20g butter
1 round tablespoon plain flour
300ml milk
100g Caerphilly cheese
2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
nutmeg, salt, pepper
butter to grease baking dish

* Hard boil and shell the eggs. (saucepans: 1)
* Peel the potatoes, and boil them, then mash them. (saucepans: 2)
* Clean the leeks well, and cut into slice about 1cm thick.
* Saute them gently in the olive oil. (saucepans: 3)
* Add a pinch of salt, a dash of water, cover and stew gently until soft.
* Remove lid and reduce liquid.
* Combine leeks with the warm mashed potato, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a dash of milk if it's too dry. It should be soft, but not sloppy. Enough to hold a shape.
* Warm the milk. (saucepans: 4)
* Melt butter over a gentle heat, and stir in flour to make a roux (saucepans: 5)
* Remove from heat and add the warm milk gradually, stirring well each time.
* Return to heat and cook, stirring often, until thickened.
* Add all but 2 tablespoons of the grated cheese, and stir well to melt the cheese.
* Grease a baking dish, and spoon in the leek mash mix. Flatten it and hollow it out in the centre to make a sort of pie shell shape.
* Halve the eggs and lay them on top of the mash.
* Spoon over the cheese sauce.
* Grate on a little nutmeg, and sprinkle remaining cheese and breadcrumbs over the top
* Bake at 180C for about 30 minutes.

Final count: 5 saucepans, one baking dish. Of course you can reduce the saucepan count by re-using the egg pan (which needs only a quick rinse) for the spuds. And a jug in the microwave works well to warm the milk. But don't forget you've also peeled hardboiled eggs and potatoes and washed and chopped leeks, and grated cheese and made a mornay sauce. And maybe cooked some bacon strips to add to the mash, like I did. You can just see them in this part-way picture. So that's six saucepans! All that for a homely simple meal. As I said, never again - unless I happen to have a lot of leftover mash and veg from some other meal.

Diana suggests serving this with baked asparagus on side, which is an excellent idea.

She also suggests cheddar instead of the Caerphilly. Now, Caerphilly is quite hard to find, though one of the Belconnen delis gets it occasionally. It's a slightly sharp firm white cheese, which will crumble rather than grate. White Leicester is not a terrible substitute, especially if you mix it with a quarter amount of fetta to add some sharpness. Cheddar is just different.

By the way, if you're reheating this for another day, pop it in the oven. Or remove the eggs before nuking. Microwaves make hardboiled eggs go rubbery.

Fauzi's dinner

I have no idea who Fauzi is or was. But I consulted a friend who speaks several languages, and she explained that the title of this dish, Masak Fauzi, is the Indonesian and Malay word "Masak" for "to cook", with "Fauzi", a name. The recipe comes from a 1970s pamphlet called simply "Curry Recipes" put out by Community Aid Abroad, who are these days known as Oxfam. This is one of the first ever curries I cooked, when I was in my teens, but I haven't made it in, oh, at least a decade. I rediscovered the pamphlet in a recent tidying phase, and decided to give it a try.

And of course you need some greens for a balanced diet, so I tried a veggie dish from the booklet, too. It involves cooked lettuce, which may seem weird but is really quite alright. It's a nice bright look, so that's the photo. Fauzi's yummy brown sludgy thing looks like a brown sludgy thing. Not so photogenic.


Recipe 1: Masak Fauzi
1 lb (450g) meat
5 onions
10 dried chillies
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 carrots
salt and sugar to taste
Slice onions and fry with chillies and a tablespoon of oil, until quite soft.
Pound them to paste.
Brown the cubed meat in the other tablespoon of oil.
Add the onion paste and tomato sauce to the meat.
Simmer until meat is tender and onions are reduced well.
Add raisins and chopped carrots and simmer for another half hour.
Add salt and sugar to taste.

Notes: This is quite sweet, even without adding any sugar, and reminds me a little bit of a sauerbraten with that mix of meat, raisins, vinegar. It's not a normal curry, as there are basically no spices. I used 550g of lamb. I tipped my onions into a bowl and used the stick blender to make the paste instead of a large mortar and pestle. Ah, technology.

If you feel tomato sauce is just too appalling, you could use a tablespoon of tomato paste, a tablespoon of vinegar and two teaspoons of sugar.

Recipe 2: Pea and Lettuce Sambal
2 teaspoons sunflower oil
1 small onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4-6 large lettuce leaves, shredded and rinsed
1/2 medium capsicum
1/2 cup peas
1 tablespoon dessicated coconut
salt, lemon juice to taste

Chop the onion, and fry it in the oil until translucent.
Add the crushed garlic and ginger and continue to fry for 2-3 minutes.
Add the spices, stir for a minute, then add a dash of water and stir well to loosen it up.
Add the peas and capsicum, stir, then add the wet shredded lettuce leaves on top.
Cover pan and simmer 5 minutes.
Stir in the coconut.
Add salt and a dash of lemon juice to taste.

Notes: This is a good use for those larger outer leaves of a cos lettuce, that are a bit strong and tough for salad. Iceberg outer leaves work, too. If you hate the idea, you could try using spinach instead. I used red capsicum, and a few extra green beans, in the pictured one.

By the way, this is a blog post that I had underway two months ago, before I took the break. I made the green veggie sambal again recently; it makes a good side dish for any meat curry. The second time I used fresh peas, and green capsicum.

Spinach and cheese pide

I made a spinach pide. It was not bad at all, though not up to TurkOz standards. But it was fun, and probably a bit healthier since I used light ricotta. I got the recipe from the Taste website: here it is. I did mangle it a little, but not very much. And I have some comments on how it went, and the lessons learned. Basically it's a stuffed pizza, much like a calzone but differently shaped, so you need a pizza dough recipe and a filling.


Recipe: Spinach and cheese pide filling
150g good fetta
250g light ricotta
4 eggs
450g spinach
Steam or microwave the spinach, and then let cool.
Squeeze out as much water as possible, and chop roughly.
Mix in crumbled fetta, ricotta and eggs.

Notes: The spinach was 2 bunches from Choku Bai Jo; and the 450g was the trimmed weight after discarding stalks and before cooking. It came down to 300g after. And I really don't think I squeezed out enough water. The filling was just a little too liquid - as you can see in the assembly photo, it's a little runny round the edges.

Here's how it looked at assembly. I made 4 long pieces, rather than the six suggested in the recipe. I also found that it was best to allow an hour for the second rising, after filling. Half an hour might do in summer, or if you prefer a thin crust.


Recipe: Pizza dough for pide
375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
1 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
1 tsp salt
250ml lukewarm water
1 tbs olive oil
Plain flour, extra, to dust
Sesame seeds

Combine flour, salt and yeast in a bowl, and make a well in the centre.
Add the olive oil and water, and stir well with a wooden spoon.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 3 minutes.
Roll in a ball, brush with a little oil, return it to the bowl.
Cover with gladwrap, and leave to rise for an hour in a warm place.
-- wait an hour --
Punch down, knead briefly, then divide in four pieces.
Roll each piece out into a long oval.
Fill, then pull edges of dough in to the centre and squeeze together.
Lay out on baking paper lined baking tray.
Brush with egg or oil, and sprinkle with a few sesame seeds.
Let rise again for 30-60 minutes.
Bake at 200C for 20 minutes, swapping trays around half way to keep the baking even.

Notes: this is the recipe at taste.com.au; but it has different quantities. I've done what the pide recipe said, and altered the quantities while keeping the technique. You can leave a strip open at the top, instead of enclosing totally. if you prefer.

I kept the flavours very basic - but when I do it again, I'll probably put some lemon or dill in with the filling mix. We added some olives and jalapeno slices on the side. It was pretty good, except that the filling was too liquid, and after the rising it had oozed out a bit. I drained most of it off before baking, but there was still a bit of messy egg making the base a bit soggier than it should have been. Oh well, whatever. It was edible. And did I mention that it was fun?

Cauliflower and/or Macaroni Cheese

This is what we had for dinner yesterday. As I was making it, I remembered that a white sauce or bechamel is sometimes seen as a bit tricky and off-putting, yet there I was doing it entirely by eye. And it worked just fine. Which means not that I am a super-genius chef, but really that it's not all that hard.

Cauliflower cheese is one of those old stock favourites, simple old-fashioned comfort food. So is macaroni cheese. My Mum used to make cauli cheese when I was a kid, and she'd usually serve it with some bacon or fried mushrooms on the side. Combining the cauliflower with macaroni is my idea, though. Sometimes I use a light white sauce for it, much the same as the light parsley sauce that goes with corned beef.


Recipe: Cauliflower & Macaroni Cheese
1/2 medium cauliflower
250g macaroni or other short pasta
Cheese sauce made with about 600ml milk (see below)
30-50g finely grated cheddar or parmesan, to top.

Boil the macaroni until barely al dente.
Split the cauliflower into florets, and steam or microwave until barely done.
Combine the two in a deep casserole dish.
Make a cheese sauce, and pour it into the dish.
Stir to make sure everything is well coated with the sauce.
Sprinkle grated cheese over the top.
Bake at 140C for 1 & 3/4 hours.


Notes: I've often baked it shorter and hotter, but this slower cooking works better. The sauce can split (separate) at the hotter temp. This was also perfect timing to put it in oven, go to dance class, and then come home ready for a hot dinner. I popped in some large chunks of pumpkin, and when I got home all I had to do was microwave some frozen peas. And there's plenty left over for another dinner and a lunch or two.


Not Recipe: Cheese Sauce
OK, if you want to see a proper bechamel, you can find it on the web, or in most basic cookbooks. Your classic cheese sauce is just a bechamel with grated cheese mixed in. You do this mixing off the heat, after the sauce has thickened. Stir well to melt the cheese into the sauce, add a smidge of nutmeg, and you're done. Here's a Delia Smith version.

The good thing about doing it properly is the flavouring of the milk with the onion and parsley. Stodgy old British plain cookery tends to skip this nicety. The bottom line basic is the plain white sauce - here's a site with measurements. What I did this time was much closer to the stodgy Brit version than the French, though I did add some extra flavour.

I whacked a large spoonful of margarine in the saucepan. I was all out of butter, so I had to use the Bloke's anti-cholesterol marg that he keeps for his toast. Which, judging by the sputtering, contains quite a bit of water. Melt it, then stir in about twice the volume of plain flour. Stir over the heat until well mixed. Pour in about 600ml cold milk all at once. Stir very well - in fact, use a heat-resistant whisk. Keep stirring until it thickens. If it's still lumpy, whisk it some more, but it's best to get the lumps out before it gets hot enough to thicken. Add two tablespoons of sherry and half a teaspoon of mustard and stir well.

If it's too thick add a little more milk. If it's not thick enough, a teaspoon or two of cornflour dissolved in a little water will fix it up. A thin pouring custard is about the idea, not one of those premium heavy ones.

Remove from heat and add plenty of grated cheese - I used 50g of parmesan, 50g of sharp cheddar, and about 75g of "pizza cheese". Stir well until cheese is melted and mixed in well. Taste, and add a pinch of salt if you like. I usually add a little nutmeg, but I forgot this time.

This is good for using up loose ends of cheese. Remnants of ricotta or cream cheese can go in as well as the hard cheeses.

Sausage, Egg & Chips - with TRUFFLES!!!

Because I can.

And because the bloke's resolution for more vegetables doesn't seem to have lasted. And because I really wanted to use up the eggs. I decided to bake them with silverbeet, as I'd originally planned, but instead of having the cauliflower side dish, we have little low fat chipolatas and oven chips. And HP sauce.

Recipe: Baked Eggs on Winter Greens

4 truffle-infused eggs
1 bunch silverbeet, leaf only
1 bunch beetroot, tops only
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup cream
nutmeg

Chop the greens coarsely, and wilt them down in a frypan with the olive oil.
Press out any extra water and place in a shallow baking dish.
Pour over most of the cream.
Make 4 hollows in the greens, and break an egg into each one.
Drizzle a little extra cream over the top, and dust with nutmeg.
Bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes, until egg is set to your liking.


Notes: OK, so this is quite a standard dish if you use normal eggs and less cream. You can use any greens you like - kale, spinach, whatever, but I prefer not to have large stalks mixing up the texture. (They can go in the soup!) I like using the beetroot greens: it makes things go a bit pink.

And honestly, it was a bit hard to tell if there was any truffle flavour. The eggs were 3 weeks old, but the whites still clung together like very fresh eggs. They were the last of my latest batch from Fi's chooks, which she gave me back at the truffle cooking demo in Bungendore. They were very tasty, very delicious - but was that truffle, or just the result of happy insect-scratching chooks? I'm a little disappointed in these, as I'd hoped the truffle would be more obvious.

Meals from the market

Monday dinner was the slow roast hoggett, with plenty of market veggies. The hoggett was beautiful - meltingly tender. As mint sauce is traditional with lamb, and red currant jelly with mutton, I offered both. Neither were made by me: the mint was from a market stall sometime, and the jelly made by B2 from her home grown currants. I made the gravy. B1 brought us a wonderful dried fruit & booze compote, heavy on the oranges, and some good vanilla icecream. Houseguests P&R bought a cherry pie from Kingston market. A good feed was had by all.

I did a tray of roast fennel and beetroot, another tray of roast pumpkin and potato, and I steamed some broccolini. It was a little tricky and the timing didn't quite work right for the potato/pumpkin tray. The pumpkin was a tad overdone and the spuds were a little underdone. I cut the pumpkin too small, and the start with the 125 degree slow roast, followed by half an hour on 180 wasn't quite enough for the spuds. Oh well. The smallest ones were OK and the rest have been cut up and tossed in the soup.

What soup? The leftover roast soup, of course. I used the shank to make stock for the gravy, and then topped it up with the bone - there wasn't much meat left on it after feeding six. I'm having it for lunch now, in between typing this. I also chucked in the leftover stock and the soaked porcinis from the risotto.

What risotto? Tuesday's dinner was a mushroom risotto using the truffle scented rice, with swiss brown mushrooms, and a stock made from Monday dinner's leftover white wine (thanks, M), some frozen homemade chicken stock and soakings from a few dried porcini. Mushrooms and the accompanying salad were from the market.

And tonight I've got a baked egg & silverbeet thingy in mind, perhaps with a side of baked cauliflower. I need to use up the last four truffled eggs ASAP, while they're still good.


Recipe: Slow roast hoggett
1 leg hoggett
500ml red wine
bay leaf
mixed herb/salt rub

Sprinkle the hoggett all over with the herb rub.
Put the hoggett on a rack over a baking pan, with the wine and bayleaf in the pan.
Cover well with foil.
Put into a 125 degree oven. Leave for 5 hours, removing foil and basting once an hour or so. Top up liquid with water if running dry.
Take foil off and return to oven for another hour.
Remove from oven and wrap well in foil to rest in a warm place for half an hour.

Notes: It will fall apart when carved; I prefer to present it in a bowl for people to serve themselves. No neat slices. For the herbs, I used a native herb & salt rub that I bought in Byron Bay. It has lemon myrtle and mountain pepperleaf, among other things. You could make up your own - I was thinking of a lemon zest, garlic & rosemary one, but I was out of garlic. The rich wine and meat juice mix makes excellent pan gravy.


Recipe: Mushroom risotto
180g truffle-infused arborio rice
1.5 litres liquid (see notes)
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
200g swiss brown mushrooms
75g grated parmesan

Heat the oil and butter in a large pan.
Saute the finely chopped onion gently until just barely golden.
Add the finely chopped garlic and sliced mushrooms.
Saute until mushrooms are wilted, then add the rice.
Stir around for a couple of minutes until it begins to look a little translucent around the edges.
Add a ladleful of warmed liquid, and stir well.
Continue to add the stock mix a ladle at a time until the risotto is done to your taste. This will take 20-25 minutes.
Turn off the heat, stir through the grated parmesan, and let it sit for 2-3 minutes before serving.

Notes: In this case I had 400ml white wine, 500ml chicken stock (at a guess, I had condensed it before freezing), and 600ml water in which I had soaked a handful of dried porcinis. For a veggie version, just use veggie stock. But it's best to taste it as you go, and if it seems too strong or salty at the 15 minute mark, add some water instead. You may not use all the liquids - I chucked my leftovers in the soup.

This was another stealth truffle dish. It's not strong, but it just makes everything that bit better. The Bloke loved it. There's more rice left, so I'll probably repeat this soonish.


Not Recipe:
A variation on leftover roast something soup.
This is a standard use-up, irreproducible, and this one came out brilliantly good. I must have another bowlful.

This variation:
* Stock made from the hoggett shank, leg bone and veggie trimmings, bayleaves and parsley stalks.
* Leftover gravy from the hoggett roast dinner. I couldn't deglaze the roasting tin into the stock, because I'd already used it to make the gravy.
* Stock made from a previous roast lamb dinner, from the freezer.
* Stock, wine and porcini left over from the risotto dinner
* a good handful of pearl barley
* a diced carrot, some frozen green beans, and diced leftover roast potatoes
* the few shards of meat from the shank and bone.

So simple: simmer the barley & carrot in the mixed stocks for half an hour, add the other veggies and meat, simmer until veg all cooked. Eat. Yum. Tragically I have to eat it all myself since the Bloke objects to soup with bits in. But he got the leftover risotto, so he's not suffering.

Of Fungi and Sherry

I had a fabulous truffled mushroom dish at Rubicon recently, which gave the illusion of not containing truffles. The truffle is a fellow fungus, and the flavour blends exceptionally well. It doesn't shout "HELLO LOOK TRUFFLES HERE!"; rather it seemed as if the mushrooms were somehow transmogrified into super-mushrooms, powerfully flavourful, more mushroomy than ever before, capable of leaping tall buildings with a single bound and all that.

So with that in mind, the last 7g of truffle went into a creamy mushroom sauce for pasta. Mushroom, sherry, truffle, cream, garlic, egg, parmesan - brilliant. Do use good sherry, though. I'm a fan of a good sherry. You don't have to get the original from Jerez, though it's good if you can. There are several decent Australian ones for around $15-30 a bottle. If you haven't tried it before, do give it a go. This is not your Nanna's sweet cooking sherry, nor the wino's nail-polish remover-y stuff. Fino and Manzanilla are the dryest styles, Amontillado is a touch sweeter. And there are some good sweet ones, too, though the restaurant industry seems to have snapped up all the Pedro Ximénez supplies.

If you haven't any sherry, a splash of cognac will be fine instead. And while I'm at it, this is a time for proper Italian parmigiano reggiano, too. No skimping on anything. I did think of adding some Bundewarra free range ham, as this is kind of a carbonara-inspired dish, but I decided not. It would have been gilding the lily. I had a nommy ham and tomato sandwich for lunch instead.

Recipe: Truffled Mushroom Fettucine
200g small swiss brown mushrooms
5-10g black truffle
2 cloves garlic
1 tblsp butter
1 tblsp good olive oil
50 ml sherry
100 ml pouring cream
pinch salt
black pepper to taste
2 truffle-infused eggs
200g fettucine
parmesan to taste

Melt the butter with the olive oil.
Add the sliced mushrooms and finely chopped truffle.
Saute for a couple of minutes, then add the crushed garlic.
Saute for another couple of minutes, then add the sherry.
Simmer down for 5 minutes, or until almost gone, then add the cream.
Simmer down to about half volume.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, cook the fettucine, then drain it and return it to the pan.
Add the mushroom sauce on top of the pasta.
Beat the egg in a cup.
Working quickly, toss the egg over the mushroom sauce and pasta, and mix well.
Add parmesan to individual serves at table.

Notes: Serve with real parmesan to top, and a simple green salad. You can mix the fettucini, egg and sauce in a large pre-warmed serving bowl if you want to take it to table, but we tend to serve from the pan unless there's a dinner party.

The Bloke was enthusiastic: "That's good pasta", he said, "No, that's really good pasta. Luxurious." And it was.

Cheese, Grommit!

We had a cheesy day on Sunday. Ricotta berry pancakes for breakfast; spinach and cheese bake for dinner. I like the combination of spinach and cheese very much, whether it's English spinach or silverbeet. In this case, it's both. As you may guess from my previous post, it's the Perfect Italiano brand that I got for free the other day.

The spinach bake is a very flexible recipe; it's another one of this things that I do without a recipe, making it up as I go. Today's version is rather like the old fashioned Hunza Pie popular in the seventies, except without the pastry. I measured as I went, so I could give you the recipe. It's mild in flavour, so you might like to bump up the herbs, or do as the Bloke and I like and add some HP sauce or a dollop of chutney.


Recipe: Spinach, Cheese and Rice Bake
1 large bunch silverbeet
250g frozen spinach
250g ricotta
100g light ricotta
100g light fetta, chopped very fine
250g cooked brown rice
1 large onion
4 eggs
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon lemon myrtle
2 teaspoons mint puree
3 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 cup grated cheese
Strip the silverbeet leaves from the stems. Chop the stems finely, discarding any brown bits, and fry gently in 1 teaspoon olive oil, until soft.
Tip into a large bowl.
Fry the onion in another teaspoon of oil, until soft, and add it to the bowl.
Chop the silverbeet greens and steam (or microwave) for a couple of minutes, until wilted. Press out excess liquid.
Thaw the frozen spinach.
Add spinach and silverbeet greens to the bowl.
Add in the cooked rice, the ricottas and fetta, and mix well.
Beat the eggs with the herbs and garlic, and then add this to the spinach/rice mix.
Use the remaining teaspoon of olive oil to grease a medium casserole dish.
Pack the spinach mix into the dish, and cover with foil.
Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.
Remove foil, top with grated cheese, bake for a further 15 minutes until nicely brown.

Notes: The silverbeet came to about 500g once it was cooked, so that's 750g of spinach/silverbeet all up. You could use some other vegies - a grated zucchini, for example.

The ricotta was Perfect Italiano for savoury, and Perfect Italiano light. The grated cheese was 1/2 cup of Perfect Italiano pizza cheese, with a little extra of the Perfect Italiano shaved parmesan. How about that? Every kind of cheese that they sent me in one recipe. The fetta was a South Cape; the rice was a sachet of Tilda pre-cooked brown basmati; the mint puree was a Gourmet Garden paste. We ate it with some sauteed field mushrooms and steamed green beans from Choku Bai Jo. *makes TV gameshow host prize gestures*


Recipe: Ricotta Berry Pancakes
250g ricotta
1 cup milk
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed berries
butter for frying
* Start by mixing the yoghurt and milk in a medium bowl. Let stand for an hour at room temperature (or refrigerate overnight). Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.
* Whisk egg whites until stuff.
* Mix flour and sugar in a large bowl.
* Fold in milk/egg yolk mix, then ricotta, then berries.
* Gently fold in egg whites.
* Heat up a frypan and add a tiny dab of butter. If it sizzles on contact without burning, proceed.
* Add a little more butter and swirl to coat pan.
* Drop tablespoons of batter in the pan. Cook until bubbles appear, then flip over and cook other side. Regulate heat to keep the cooking time to about 3-5 minutes per side.

Notes: obviously this is a variant on the Donna Hay recipe that we used previously. I used the regular ricotta in this - I would have used the sweet one but they didn't send me that. Perhaps they meant to; I got two tubs of regular, one of light and one of the "ricotta for savoury".

The Coastal Donna Hay Marathon

Last weekend, and some days surrounding it, I went to the coast with B1 & B2. We had a great chillout time - while we had planned to do some walks, it rained a bit too much so we spent most of the time indoors, reading and cooking. This is no hardship when the view from the couch looks like this picture.

We did do some shopping - food in Bateman's Bay, hippie clothes and pottery in Mogo - and we went to The River Moruya to celebrate B2's birthday in style. And we had a sandwich lunch in Mogo at Suzanne's bakery - they were out of the fabulous sourdough for retail, but not for the cafe, so we got to eat some anyway. Ha!

The cooking was an adventure. The stove looks like this: note the kettle on side giving scale. The oven is large enough for 2 small muffin trays or one cake, there are two hotplates on top, but you can't use them at the same time. There is also a microwave and an electric frying pan.

We did pretty well with it. We made hotcakes and risotto in the frying pan, and stuffed capsicums, roast cauliflower, and two lots of cake in the oven. The hotplate on top I used only twice. Once, to heat up some pumpkin soup, and the second time, for a cake topping. Dinner on day one was mugs of pumpkin & chestnut soup from my freezer, augmented with leftover pumpkin from the Easter pie-baking. A good post-driving snack dinner, with added cheese, biscuits, cured salmon remnants, avocado, olives and fruit.

All of our recipe cooking came from the latest Donna Hay magazine (Autumn 2009). B1 had brought it along with an eye to the bundt cake feature, and as we browsed it, more and more good ideas came to mind.

The hotcakes, as pictured on the magazine cover, were fabulous, and quite simple. I'm not sure why I don't regularly make these. It does require planned shopping, I suppose, though fresh ricotta and buttermilk are the only ingredients I don't keep in stock all the time. We used fresh blueberries, but of course frozen would do. I'll pop in the recipe at the end of this post.

The Donna Hay web people have posted the recipe to the Cinnamon-sugar Maple Bundt Cakes, so you can go look at it there. They are worth trying: thick textured, moist and fruity, with a fun cinnamon-sugar coating like a doughnut. They are also quite easy to make, though grating the apples is a bit of a pain. And they keep well.

These were less successful than the hotcakes, probably for a number of reasons. Not being in possession of any mini-bundt tins, I used B1's pair of rose-shaped mini cake silicon forms. These ended up being a bit overfull of the mix, and the cooking time was way wrong. The first batch out of the oven were underdone on the bottom and stuck to the pans - despite being apparently done by skewer test. The second batch I left a lot longer, and they came out fine. It could well be the oven: perhaps two batches prevents the heat circulating properly. Or the heat is too easily let out.

The other bundt cake that B1 made was a fig and date one. This worked better - the single tin may have helped. I made the toffee coating for it, and I think there was too much. If you have bought this mag and want to make this cake, try using half the amount of toffee. It's amazing when first made - shades of sticky date pudding, with crisp toffee like a brulee coating. The toffee topping softens after a day, though, as you'd expect. It's still good, just not so much of a showpiece.

And just so you don't think we ate nothing but sweets, we also made the roast cauliflower and almond risotto from that issue. This is actually misnamed: it's a simple risotto flavoured with fresh sage. The cauliflower served alongside. The risotto is just butter, onion, sage, rice, sherry, veggie stock and parmesan. Then you add a side of the cauli, and some slivers of washed rind cheese - Taleggio if you can get it. The result is totally wonderful, and I want to do it again. With one caveat: use good stock. The standard Campbells brand veggie stock is a bit salty and rather unsubtle. I'd prefer a good chicken stock, and maybe some white wine.


Recipe 1: Ricotta Hotcakes
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites, whisked stiff
200g ricotta
butter, to fry
1 cup blueberries (optional)
Mix the egg yolks, buttermilk and vanilla well.
Combine this with the flour and sugar.
Fold through the whisked egg whites and the blueberries.
Fry up in batches, using about 2-3 tablespoons of batter per hotcake.
Allow 3-4 minutes per side, or until puffed and golden.

Notes: You'll need a slightly lower heat than with regular pancakes as these are thick, and the middle needs to cook before the outsides burn. Serve with maple syrup. Or lemon and sugar. Or maple butter if you can be bothered making it. We couldn't.


Recipe 2: Roast Cauliflower with Sage & Almonds
500g cauliflower florets
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 bunch sage
1/4 cup chopped almonds
Preheat oven to 220C.
Toss the cauliflower into a baking tray with the salt, pepper and oil.
Roast for 15 minutes.
Strip whole leaves off the sage, discarding stalks, and chop the almonds.
Add to the pan and roast a further 5-10 minutes until cauliflower is golden and sage is crisp.


Notes: Serve this as a veggie side to anything you like, but it's especially good with a cheesy sage risotto! But Donna, darls, what on earth do you mean by "a bunch" of sage? Who knows? In general supermarket sales, sage seems to come in smaller packs than parsley or coriander, so maybe it's about 1/4 cup of leaves, loose-packed? Whatever.

ORLY, Delicious?

I mentioned back when I was making the zucchini muffins that Delicious magazine this month has a zucchini bread recipe. And my zucchini plant is continuing production. I even had the traditional experience of discovering one as thick as my wrist, that I was sure hadn't existed on the previous day. So, well. Zucchini bread. Here it is.

I made it yesterday, and I'm eating some for breakfast as I write this. I'll put the recipe under the fold, but here are some selected quotes from the magazine. "Savoury Breads have taken over from quiche as the perfect lunch snack", and "a savoury fruit and nut bread served with soft cheeses and prosciutto is the perfect lunchtime snack." (March '09 issue, p73)

Honestly, Valli, what were you thinking? Did they swap a different recipe in at the last minute? This recipe contains nearly 400g of sugar, and no ingredient that might be construed as savoury, unless you count the zucchini. I reduced the sugar in my version, and it's actually pretty nice, but I do feel that I'm eating cake for breakfast. I can imagine it with cream cheese, but prosciutto would be going too far.

Recipe: Zucchini Bread
400g self-raising flour
200ml melted butter & sunflower oil
1 heaped tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large zucchini, grated
3/4 cup pecans
1/2 cup dried cranberries (craisins)
* Find a loaf tin that holds about 2 litres, and prepare tin as you prefer for baking.
* Preheat oven to 150C.
* In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the flour and butter/oil. Stir very thoroughly to distribute the spices evenly.
* Mix through the butter/oil blend well, then finally fold in the flour gently.
* Pour into the loaf tin, and bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, or until a testing skewer comes out clean.
* Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

Notes:
Original recipe by Valli Little, Delicious magazine. This variant of mine is different in that:
1. I use self-raising flour, instead of plain plus bicarb plus baking powder.
2. I used 1/2 tsp allspice instead of 1/4 tsp mixed spice, and heaped up the cinnamon. Next time I think I'll add nutmeg, too.
3. I reduced the caster sugar from 1 1/3 cups to 3/4 cup. This could go lower.
4. 200ml of sunflower oil in the original became a melted butter & oil mix, because, well, I had butter to use up.
5. I used a bit more fruit and nuts. It could go even more, I think.
6. I used pecans, the Bloke hates walnuts. (But it might be too sweet for him anyway.)
7. I changed the mixing order a bit.

Also, I really wish she'd given a cup or weight measure for the zucchini. "Three large ones" is a bit vague. I suspect she didn't mean my huge one. I used that and a small-medium one, guesstimating that it's about the same amount as 3 of the largest you commonly see in shops. I'm wishing now that I'd measured it at the time. Isn't hindsight wonderful?

By the way, I measured my loaf tin by filling it with water from a cup measure, then I dumped the water in the bucket which I keep for the garden. To prepare the tin for baking, you can grease & line the tin, which is the old-fashioned way; or use a silicon pan as is, or line one with baking paper.

A Couple of Curries

I found a lamb meatball recipe last week, from the "Taste & Create" event, and I also found a recipe for a cashew curry while browsing for non-legume vego dishes. With some lamb mince at the market, courtesy of the saltbush lamb people, and the Bloke's OK to go for meat, this sounded like a good combo. And it is. Not terribly aesthetically appealling, I know. My photos aren't that encouraging.

I kept pretty closely to the recipe for the "Rista" meatballs. I did not have any Kashmiri garam masala, though. I do actually have some "Kashmiri Masala", but it's a paste, not a powder, and has that red colouring you get in tikka. I had a look at it, and decided to just go for regular garam masala, and add a little extra cardamom for the Kashmiri theme. I'm also not convinced that my saffron is any good. But at least my meatballs look much the same as Happy Cook's.

My variant on the Capsicum-Cashew Curry came out a little differently to the original picture. I seem to have much more potato and green and much less cashew. I suspect the author of cheating :) Anyway, it's delicious, a simple dry curry. I varied it in several ways.

First, I did not actually have any black gram dal, nor any asafoetida. Nor did I want to drive off to Belconnen to get them. Remembering that asafoetida is often used instead of garlic, I swapped in a couple of mashed garlic cloves. Also, Pratibha Rao says that usually this dish is made with some other vegetable called "tendle" that I don't know anything about. With her example, I felt free to do some further swapping. I only had one green capsicum on hand, so I added an equivalent bulk of green beans. I also decided to add the capsicum and beans later in the process so they wouldn't overcook.

It's a pleasant dish - gently spiced, warming and filling with the potato. The raw cashews, when soaked and cooked, become soft and a bit bean-like in texture, but they still taste like cashews.


Links to the originals, for reference.
* My Kitchen Treasures - Rista, lamb meatballs in saffron cream sauce
* The Indian Food Court - Capsicum, Potato & Cashew Curry

Real Blokes Eat Quiche. And Burgers

Especially a decadent rich quiche. I made a caramelised onion, chargrilled capsicum and brie quiche, and it met with blokey approval. I haven't made a quiche for ages; they tend to be rather rich and heavy. This combo was no exception, but very good. You can do more or less work on it as you buy or make the fillings. On this occasion, I used caramelised onion marmalade from a jar, and grilled my own capsicum, but you can also buy capsicum in jars, or from deli counters. Look for the antipasto sections.

Recipe 1: Caramelised Onion, Roast Capsicum and Brie Quiche
1/4 cup caramelised onions
1 very large red capsicum, grilled and peeled
125g pack Brie-style cheese
3 eggs
150ml milk
pinch salt
20cm pastry case, blind baked
Cover the base of the pastry case with the onion. Add a layer of chopped capsicum. Mix the egg, milk and salt well and pour in. Arrange the sliced brie on top.
Bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes, until filling is set.

Notes: The cheese will melt, so a test knife may not come out clean. If you want to be super-decadent, use cream instead of milk.

To make the capsicum, char it over a gas flame - I just drop it on the burner and turn over regularly to make sure all sides are done. The skin can go quite black. Put into a plastic bag and twist it closed. Leave for 5-10 minutes, and then peel. The blackened skin will mostly just flake off, and the rest will peel easily. Also, oven-roasting them is an easy option, if you are preparing in advance. Skins peel off very easily from a well-done capsicum.

How do you make a pastry case?
Recipe 2: Pastry Case
2 cups plain flour, plus a little extra
1/2 cup butter
iced water
This is the simplest pastry I do, and it's even easier in a food processor. Dump flour in the processor, add roughly chopped butter, and whizz until it's mixed well. It sort of looks like breadcrumbs. Add iced water - start with a tablespoon, whizz it up again, and then add teaspoons as a time until the dough just comes together. The amount of water varies with the weather, the type of flour and butter, the phase of the moon, and the number you last thought of.

Remove dough, knead very briefly, and let it rest for half an hour. Roll out on a floured board or benchtop to make a pastry case size; trim and edge by pressing with a fork. You'll probably have enough leftovers for a small turnover or something. (I made a rhubarb & raspberry jam turnover with the trimmings.)

Prick the pastry gently with a fork, not going all the way through. Line the case with baking paper and pour in some pastry weights or dried beans. (You can't cook the beans later, but you can save them to re-use as weights.) Bake at 200C for 10 minutes, remove weights. If you are going to return it to the oven with a filling, bake for another 5 minutes. Otherwise, if you will fill it cold, with no further cooking, give it 10 minutes.

So that was the quiche - serve with a salad, it is rich. We actually ate mostly vego all week, though not 100%. I rummaged through the freezer when we got back from Corinbank, and converted some leftover wallaby curry with lots of sauce and little meat into a veggie curry. So it was a curry, this quiche, and then there was also a wholemeal pasta dinner.

I've never had any luck with the dry kind of wholemeal pasta - I can never cook it right, it was too raw or total mush with nothing in between. But the Latina wholemeal ravioli with ricotta and spinach worked pretty well. I'll buy then again. I made a simple roast tomato, onion, zucchini and fresh basil sauce for it.

We did this diet switch on medical advice for the Bloke, and he didn't object much. But when the tests came back negative, he wanted a burger, stat! So I made us cheezburger last night. In this pic: cheezburger, made with Belted Galloway beef mince and my favourite supermarket cheddar - Bega vintage strong'n'bitey. Also, McCain's heart-healthy oven chips, baked with a good shake of Crankypants cajun seasoning, and a salad.

Zucchini muffins... oops!

The zucchini plant is doing well, so it must be time for a zucchini muffin recipe. This one that I googled up sounds pretty good. Here's the ingredient list.

* 3 cups grated fresh zucchini
* 2/3 cup melted unsalted butter
* 1 1/3 cup sugar
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* Pinch salt
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1 cup walnuts (optional)
* 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional)


Look: 2/3 cup of butter, 1 & 1/3 cups sugar? Whoa! This is not your health food muffin. I decided to do it with only 1 cup of sugar, and different berries and nuts, but leave it otherwise untouched. Well, also self-raising flour, not that faffing about with baking soda. I used a cup of pecans, and a cup of dried raspberries that I found at Belco market. At $8 a punnet for the dried berries, and $4.50 for the pecans, this is also not your budget muffin.

By the way, for those new to US recipe style, 1 cup of butter is pretty close to a 250g packet. And they nearly always overdo the sugar. It took 4 medium zucchini to make the 3 cups. And although the original recipe says it makes more than 12, the author Elise must have small muffin pans. I got a nice even dozen.

So off I went on the routine. Mix dry stuff, mix wet stuff - including zucchini, it's very moist when grated. Combine, stuff into the silicone mini-brioche trays that I usually use for muffins. No, I have never made brioche. Then into the fan-forced oven at 175C for 20 minutes. Yes, my oven has been fixed! La la la... Ooh, look, Delicious magazine this month has a recipe for zucchini bread which is remarkably similar. How odd that they call it a savoury bread, when it has even more sugar than these muffins.

Wait, what? Oh Noes!!! This is the oops! I discovered the melted butter still sitting in the microwave. I accidentally baked them entirely without added fat. To my surprise, they are nevertheless quite edible, even when cold. The zucchini keeps them moist enough. I've added a thin smear of butter as I eat them, but it's still considerably less fat than in the recipe.

I find this especially amusing, because I was interviewed recently, and asked if I had any shameful kitchen secrets. No, really, I don't. I have grown up past apologising for my tastes. If I like pineapple on my pizza, or indeed anything unfashionable and daggy, that's my prerogative. De gustibus non est disputandum. And of course I sometimes make mistakes - don't we all? I'm not writing a fantasy blog here.

Now, what on earth am I going to do with 2/3 cup of melted & re-set butter??

The great pumpkin pie disaster

I've had a small hankering to make a pumpkin pie, ever since US Thanksgiving. So when I found a recipe at my Taste & Create partner's blog it seemed like the right thing to do. Nicely cross-cultural, and also festive. It's been an adventure. This has *not* been a flawless execution of the concept.

To begin with, the pumpkin puree was no problem. I got a nice big half butternut, removed the seeds and strings, chopped it in rough chunks and microwaved it for 10 minutes. I let it cool, and noticed that some water drained out just like that. Then I removed the peel, mashed the pumpkin with a potato masher, and put it in a paper towel lined sieve to drain. I used paper towels on top as well and squished it down, and eventually came up with 2 US cups, and half a metric cup extra of puree. So far so good. I have an old fashioned cup measure, so the 8 fluid ounce US cup is no problem.

For the next step, I made the pie filling. Here's Stephanie's recipe.

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Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Filling
2 cups mashed, cooked pumpkin (reviewers suggested using more like 2 1/2 cups)
1 12-oz. can evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger (we skipped this; Mom doesn't like ginger)
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
Pastry for 2 single 9-inch pie crusts
Prepare pastry. Roll out pastry to fill two pie plates. Partially prebake crust to keep it from getting soggy: Line crust with a double thickness of foil. Heat oven to 425 and bake foil-lined crust for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 2-4 minutes until crust is just barely starting to brown. Press down any bubbles with a fork. Don't prick the crust, though; you don't want filling leaking through.

In a large bowl with mixer speed on medium, beat pumpkin with evaporated milk, eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Mix well. Pour into a prepared crust. Bake 40 minutes or until when a knife is inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out clean.

---

Not being a big follower of exact recipes, I varied it a bit. I really don't like evaporated milk, so I substituted cream, of the plain pouring kind. I used dark brown sugar rather than light since that is what I had on hand. And I totally forgot to add the salt, though I had intended to cut it down to a pinch. Finally, since another of Stephanie's recipes for pumpkin pie spice includes cloves, I added just a pinch of ground cloves - and I kept the ginger. I chucked it all in the blender and whizzed it smooth. It seemed nicely tasty in this state; so far so good... The white ceramic ginger grater is in the photo because I use that to grate nutmeg, but perhaps fresh ginger might be nice to try sometime.

I needed a plate of something to take a work Xmas party. So I decided to make pumpkin pie bites rather than two pies. I used Stephanie's technique of cutting pastry circles and stuffing them into muffin cups, although I made mine smaller than hers. The fluted edges on some are because I have brioche moulds. I use these to make muffins, mostly. They make very cute shapes with no hassle. My oven seemed to be overheating slightly and I overcooked a few in the blind baking phase, but I noticed in time to save most of them. I let them cool, and then filled each one with about a dessertspoon of filling. I guessed at the baking time for these and monitored them closely. The idea is to bake until the testing toothpick comes out clean. They took about 15 minutes at 180C in this case.

I took them to the party, and people ate them and enjoyed them. I ate a few myself, and they were sweet, spicy, smooth and creamy. I really liked them, and looked forward to having a whole wedge of pie made from the leftover filling. But this is where things started to go wrong.

First, I started to blind bake the tart shell. This was after dinner last night. Once again the oven seemed to be overheating. I rescued it at what I estimate was "just a bit too dark", but still OK for home if not for show. Oh well. I poured in the filling, gave it a foil fringe to save the brown edges from getting even worse, turned the heat down a bit, set a timer to check at 20 minutes, and went off to watch some telly.

20 minutes later, no sign of setting. Another 20 minutes, and there was a strange smell of burning, but I couldn't find anything that would explain it. The pie wasn't set. Another 20 minutes... Obviously I was not paying too close attention, because it took me an hour to twig that the oven was actually quite cool, only around 120 degrees. What? I fiddled around with the controls, wondering if I'd accidentally turned it off. It's a SMEG brand (cue Red Dwarf fan sniggering) and there is a timer switch that can easily be turned to the wrong position by accident. I flipped that around, then wondered if I had the right setting, noticed that the thermostat light seemed to be on so surely it must be heating now... Well, no, it wasn't. But why was it warm? Residual heat? What?

Eventually I gave up and shoved the pie in the fridge. This morning I tried again, and with the oven definitely cold to start, it was easier to work out what was actually happening. The fan-force element has died entirely. It fans, but generates no heat. But the oven has two more elements, top and bottom, so I was able to bake the pie using a non-fan setting. To avoid burning the pastry any further, I let it go at 180 for 40 minutes. It came out OK, looking quite nice - though still a bit darker around the edges despite its foil protector. This is definitely not a showpiece. Oh well.

I left it to cool on the counter, feeling a bit annoyed about the oven, but satisfied that at least I had a tolerable pie. And an hour or so later, the bloke came in and said "there's a cat that likes your pumpkin pie". Aaaaarrgh!! I really should have covered it. Plummet has licked up a neat square from one side of the pie. Well, I don't care, I've just wiped it down in case he's licked any more, and cut that bit out. I'm going to eat the rest anyway - all of it, if the bloke and his mate object. I shall not lie about the cat.

I've already eaten a slice for afternoon tea while writing this. I tossed the burned crust edge in the bin, leaving it as more of a slice than a pie. The taste is still delicious - the spice blend, pumpkin and cream are great together. The texture is not as good as the small pies, probably due to the partial two-phase baking. It would also be better more deeply filled. If I do this again, I'll make the big pie first, to be sure of having enough. No, that's *when* I do it again. I have some Easter visitors in mind. Don't worry, I promise to keep the cat away.

On balance, I suppose it could have been worse. Disaster is an overstatement, although it sounds good in the title. On the negative side, I have:
* the pie shell is semi-burned
* my oven is broken. smegging smeg.
* the cat ate part of the pie

On the positive side, at least the oven didn't break when I was making the first batch of mini-pies, so I got my work party show-off moments. And I have now got a yummy pumpkin pie recipe, and some pumpkin slice for dessert tonight. This is good stuff.

Another of those weekend food reports

It's been pretty good. I did some shopping at Gungahlin on Friday, which left me with some useful ingredients. A few more ingredients arrived via the Bakeshoppe and Meatways in Kambah, which I am saving to write up when I get to the letter K. And yet more came in from the garden: I picked 1.5 kg of rhubarb, and a few late lemons.

A friend needed a bit of cheering up after some stressful times with illnesses in the family, so I made her dinner last night. For a scratch meal, it was pretty bloody good, if I do say so myself! We had veal, sage, prosciutto and wine wine ravioli, with proper parmigiano reggiano cheese, both from Fruitylicious. And a very simple roast tomato, capsicum, garlic and balsamic sauce - with no extra herbs, so as not to compete too much. We had a green mixed leaf salad with olive oil & balsamic dressing, and a dessert of Maggie Beer quince and bitter almond icecream, with stewed rhubarb and an orange, almond & spice biscotto from Cook & Grocer.

Tonight we're going over to a friend's place for dinner and I'm taking dessert. I seriously contemplated doing a pumpkin pie, since that's all over the blagosphere at the moment with US thanksgiving. But I eventually decided it was probably too weird a concept for Australians, and it's not ideal to experiment on people that I don't know very well. There were some rather fabulous sounding recipes about: bourbon-pecan-pumpkin cheesecake, anyone? It's on my "one-day" list.

Anyway, I finally decided to make a lemon meringue pie. And then I had an attack of the lazies and bought a pre-baked pastry shell from Woollies. It claims to be premium butter shortcrust. We'll see. The lemon filling doesn't quite fit in the tart shell, so I'm also trying some Pampas frozen pastry shells - a new line, you get 12 unbaked shells in little foil cases for about $4.50-ish. I'll report on the quality later. And maybe try to grab a picture.

Update: done. As for quality: the Woolworths pastry seemed quite good, really. It's more expensive than making your own, but handy when you have no time.

Recipes follow.
Recipe 1: Roast tomato, capsicum and garlic pasta sauce
4 large tomatoes
2 medium red capsicums
1 head of garlic
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
Roast the tomatoes, garlic and capsicums in a pie plate, in a low oven for 1 1/2 hours.
Allow to cool. Set garlic and capsicum aside.
Over the pie plate, skin tomatoes and discard hard stem end. Let the juices drip into the pie plate. Return tomatoes to plate and squash. Let sit for 5 minutes to dissolve pan drippings.
Skin capsicum and chop, discarding stem and seeds.
Remove 4-6 large cloves of garlic from the head, or cut the top off and squeeze out 2 tsp of roast garlic paste.
Put the garlic, capsicum, tomatoes and juices into a saucepan and simmer gently to reduce slightly to your preferred sauce consistency. Stir well to distribute the garlic.
Season to taste with pepper, balsamic vinegar and salt.

Notes: Serves 4 sparingly, but it's richly flavoured. If you are serving this with a plain pasta, rather than a flavoured ravioli, some herbs might be nice. I'm imagining some shredded fresh basil.

Recipe 2: Stewed Rhubarb
1.5kg chopped rhubarb
1/2 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
2 tsp rosewater
Cochineal or red food colouring (optional)
Wash rhubarb well, rinse in a colander, but do not dry.
Put in saucepan with no extra water.
Pour over sugar and rosewater and stir well.
Add whole vanilla bean.
Bring to simmer slowly, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, or until done.
Add colouring to improve pink colour if desired.

Notes: I actually did mine in a casserole dish in the oven (since it was on for the tomatoes anyway). It doesn't come out as whole as the roast variety, since it's so deeply filled, that it stews rather than roasts. My garden rhubarb was very green, so I added colouring for prettiness.

Recipe 3: Lemon Meringue Pie
1 20cm shortcrust pastry shell, prebaked
3 large lemons
1/2 cup caster sugar
another 1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
25g butter
2 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar or cream of tartar
FILLING
=======
Zest and juice the lemons - you want about 175ml juice.
Top up the lemon juice with water to make 350ml.
Mix cornflour and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan, and gradually mix in the lemon/water mix, keeping back about 75ml. Add the lemon zest.
Heat up, stirring continuously, until the mixture thickens and boils.
Simmer for one minute further, stirring well.
Remove from heat and add butter. Stir until melted and well combined.
Add remaining lemon/water mix, and stir well.
Add the egg yolks, and stir well.
Set aside to cool.

MERINGUE
========
Whisk the egg whites until just stiff.
Slowly whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, in about 6 batches.
Add the vinegar or cream of tartar, and whisk again

ASSEMBLY
========
Preheat the oven to 150C.
Spoon the cooled lemon filling into the tart shell.
Cover it with the meringue, being sure to seal it right up to the edges.
Fluff it up a bit by dabbing with the spatula to make lots of little peaks.
Bake for 45 minutes, until pale golden.
Cool before eating; serve lukewarm or cold.

Notes: The Woollies Select brand pastry shell was a bit smaller so I had some leftover filling. But this doesn't make a lot of meringue, so I used it all and had a few plain lemon tarts left in the Pampas brand mini shells. If you want to make your own pastry, 1 cup flour and 60g butter is about the right amount.

This is an old fashioned version of this classic pie, with a little meringue rather than the massive fluffy towers you get in cafe versions. You'd need a lot more eggwhites to do that. The filling is lighter than the modern lemon tart - these are usually made with a lot of egg yolks and cream, and no cornflour and water filler! I got the recipe from a book that I've had since 1982 or so: Philippa Davenport's 100 Great Dishes Made Easy. I think I bought it at Mary Martin's bookshop in Civic, anyone remember that? The only modification I've made to the original is to use more lemon juice. I like my lemon bitey.